Chapter Text
A chair breaks over his back. Deckard cringes.
Ah, fuck, that’s gonna leave a mark.
He pulls his blade out of the guy that he’d just gutted with it and swings with it, throwing it at the guy who had broken the chair over him. Continuing with his momentum from the spin, he rams his heel into the same guy’s face, taking him down as another attacker rushes him from the back, putting him in a chokehold. Deckard lets him, then reaches his arm back to hold onto the guy’s head and drops his weight as he artfully tosses the guy over his shoulder.
The git, apparently not getting the memo that the move was supposed to get him to let go of his neck , brings Deckard down with him. Deckard rolls with it, somersaulting as the momentum demands him to and putting the tosser into a chokehold of his own with his thighs. Upon seeing more thugs rushing in, however, he instead ends it with a quick twist of his legs, hearing a satisfying snap and feeling the body going lip between his legs.
He’s up on his feet not a moment too soon. Two of them, both of them brawny, are on him, and he’s being forced back. He blocks a blow to his face from one of them with both hands, and thus takes a solid punch to his gut from the other one. He cringes again internally even as he breaks the first one’s wrist then redirects a second punch from the second guy into the first one’s face, knocking him out. The second one’s face goes openmouthed and he turns to his fallen comrade apologetically for a split second; the fleeting distraction was enough for Deckard to put him to the ground with a well placed series of kicks and punches.
He straightens his stance only to lose it when another one rams into him from the side. His ribs let out a shriek of protest, and he apologizes mentally to them as he drops his weight once again and throws the attacker headlong over his shoulder again with his own momentum.
He sees another three rushing him from his peripherals and decides, fuck it , and whips out his Glock and shoots them down with one hand while his other hand blocks what definitely would have been a bloody nose from a fourth goon who had rushed his front.
He then turns the gun on the fourth guy and takes the opportunity to take the bugger down, wincing when one bullet doesn’t prove enough and the guy gets handsy enough to send a blade into his arm. Not letting the pain that lances up his arm distract him, he sends another bullet at the man, this one aimed at his forehead for good measure.
He pulls the blade out of his arm and uses it to strike down two more, putting holes in places he’s sure they wouldn’t prefer holes to be. Looking up from their still bodies on the floor, he eyes the final one, a man twice his size. Bald. His lips tick up in a smirk as another similar figure comes to mind--he has to tease Hobbs about this, he can already picture it-- I met some people the other day, one of ‘em was tall, big, ugly, looked like he’d just bounced his head of a wall recently. Reminded me of you! --it’s simple on its own but with a twist of his tone and a leer on his face, he just knows he can get a reaction out of the man. Have to remember that one, can’t let it go to waste. He distractedly rushes the goon, leaping when he gets close enough and wrapping his shins around the guy’s throat. He twists and the guy goes down with Shaw on top of him. He adjusts his grip so that he’s got the guy in a chokehold like with the other one. This time, with no immediate threat at hand, he takes his time, pinning down the guy’s hands when he starts trading blows with Shaw’s torso, which really doesn’t appreciate the attention.
Maybe he should send it in a postcard? The insult wouldn’t sound right coming off his tongue--it would be nicer written down . He can even write it in that scrawling way that just bleeds sarcasm onto the paper .
He jerks when the goon suddenly sinks his teeth into the meat of his thigh in a desperate attempt to get away. He lets out a snarl and uses the heel of his palm to knock the guy’s teeth in. He smirks at the wail of pail, then, deciding that the choke really isn’t worth his time, twists his legs once again, hearing the telltale snap once again.
He flips back onto his feet, then abruptly rocks forward, putting a hand to his torso when his vision whites around the edges. Shit, the blows were adding up . His body was a cacophony of pain that let him know its disapproval of his movements when he grabbed the flash drive that he had come for in the first place and took off in a sprint towards where he had left his bike. Hopping on--wincing as he does because fucking who even bites people during fights?! --he takes off into the night, abandoning the warehouse that he’d just cleaned out.
He suddenly remembers a Sunday barbecue at the Toretto residence with the blondie--big Brian--telling a story of a car with an ejector seat that didn’t work and a guy named Enrique who just wouldn’t quit . Toretto had laughed for days at that one, asking if O'Conner would bite him too if he put him in a headlock and letting out an unmanly shriek of rage when the man had done just that. Everyone had started laughing even harder at that, holding their sides as blondie danced out of Toretto’s range when the man had made a grab for him, face red from laughing himself. The crude joke about how he had thought that Dom only made that sound in bed had surprised Deckard. He had only been even more shocked when Toretto had just grabbed Blondie around the waist and hauled him in for a filthy kiss that made O’Conner release a few sounds of his own. Everyone else acted like it was a normal occurrence. Weren’t Ortiz and Toretto together? And he’d heard something about O’Conner being with Toretto’s sister? Either way he hadn’t said anything then, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to ask Toretto or O’Conner about it now. They were all friends now, especially since Han had come forward as decidedly not dead , but he figured that asking the two about their sex life would still cross a few lines.
Maybe he could ask Hobbs? They seem to be somewhat friendly with one another now. Welp, if he ever needs a conversation starter with the man, at least he’s got one. He stores it in the back of his mind with the taunt from earlier.
…
The next morning, less than 10 hours apart from the previous fight, he’s infiltrating another bunker, this one with better security. He snarls as he feels a bullet lodge itself in his right shoulder. He makes a show of looking at the shoulder, then up to the guy that had fired the gun. The guy swallows heavily. A second later, he’s on the ground, a similar bullet in him. Deckard steps over him uncaringly, meeting the two others that rush him and a third that tries to get him from behind and pin his arms to his sides. He hisses at the contact even as he kicks out at the approaching two then sends his heel into the third one’s shin, hearing a grunt behind him and loosening of arms that allows him to drop to the ground and sweep the guy’s feet out from underneath him, giving him an elbow to the throat as he goes down. His right arm’s still smarting from the knife it had taken the night before, and the bullet to his shoulder sure as hell didn’t help matters.
Another handful of guards enters the room and sees him and the bodies littered around him--which he’s sure is quite the picture--and immediately rushes him--which ultimately says more about their self preservation than his intimidation factor, he believes. He meets them halfway, trading blows--which makes it obvious that he can’t say much about his own self preservation either--but four trained fighters on one is difficult, even for him, and he lands as many blows as he himself takes.
He tastes the blood from a split lip from a stray fist and an opening cut on his cheekbone from the ring on a not-so-stray-fist. He loses ground but gains it back quickly, opting to use his legs more than his arms, thus packing more power behind his blows. He knocks one of the four back into a glass table with a forceful thrust kick to the stomach, and another drops to the ground after a sharp knee to the groin--which, he figures, is playing dirty, but whatever, bite him, it’s literally four-on-one he can do what he fucking wants--and when the third one rushes him like a bull, he sidesteps and lets the guy come back to him while he deals with the fourth, who he takes care of with a roundhouse to the face that sends the guy straight to the ground with a broken cheekbone. The third one redirects and rushes him again, so Deckard just sidesteps again--honestly, Americans, you think they’d learn--but grabs the twit’s elbow as he goes by, pulling it back and breaking it easily before knocking the guy down with a solid side kick to his ribs.
He shakes out his right arm, feeling the sensation of pins and needles setting in. He uses his left to massage out the right as he leans over the computer he’s getting data from, grabbing the flash drive when the download finally finishes. Just as he straightens, he hears a yell to his side, and he turns to face it, only to be bowled over through a glass divider when the bonehead fucking tackles him --maybe he and the other one are related?--like a bull.
He lands on his right arm, which ouch does not fucking like that and is forced to roll when the thug who had shoved him through tries to stomp his face in. He rolls--through glass shards yikes--and uses his hands to push himself back onto his feet--again glass shards, ouch!--and grabs one of the glass shards at his feet and pushes it into the plonker’s thigh as he delivers a stunning uppercut with his left while the man is distracted with yowling in pain like an angry cat.
He would’ve done it with his right, but it’s stopped obeying him, instead choosing to cheerfully dangle at his side, perpetually useless. He rolls his right shoulder and massages the limb as he treks back through the bunker, flash drive still in his pocket, thankfully. He manages to avoid too much serious confrontation and instead hops on his bike again, letting it start up with a loud roar that he’s sure is probably just alerting more people to his presence but, whatever, he’s done what he needs to do, might as well leave in style. He takes off into the night, swerving as some of the bastards take it upon themselves to take potshots at him.
He manages to get out of there in one piece, but his vision starts wavering as time passes. He takes one hand off the bike’s handles to press against the gunshot, swearing when he feels how wet the cloth around it and over it have become. He doesn’t slow down, because if there’s people following him that would just be plain barmy, and he takes his hand off the bike handle to press against the wound now and then, feeling out the bleeding. Fuck he needs help . And he sure as hell didn’t trust Nobody’s medics with his blood samples.
He drives mindlessly, to busy thinking about his injuries to accurately judge where he’s going, so imagine his surprise when he finds himself on Hobbs’ street in front of Hobbs’ house with his hand raised to ring Hobbs’ doorbell. He comes back to himself just before his finger hits the doorbell, and he pauses and considers. It’s arse-o’clock in the morning, Samantha Hobbs might be home, Hobbs is probably sleeping, and they’re not really that great of pals to begin with. Then he considers the other side: He’s bleeding out, he can’t use his right arm to help himself, Hattie’s out of town, Owen’s got his own problems, and he still doesn’t trust Nobody with his blood samples. He sighs, going to scrub a hand against his face but deciding ultimately against it when he remembers the glass probably embedded in it.
I’ll ring the doorbell once, and wait ten seconds. If he answers, I’ll ask for help. If he doesn’t, I’ll leave and deal with it on my own.
He nods to himself, satisfied with his plan, and painstakingly uses his pointer finger-- embedded with glass, fucking ouch! -- to ring the doorbell.
Then he waits. And he counts.
One
There’s no movement inside.
Two
He massages his right arm again. The pins and needles have become unbearable.
Three
He promptly regrets massaging his arm because there’s literally glass inside his hands .
Four
You’d think he’d be able to remember.
Five
He tries wiggling the fingers of his right hand, feeling giddy when they respond.
Six
He tries his elbow next, rolling it.
Seven
It pulls at the stab wound in a way that makes his vision go white.
Eight
But, hey, it does still work so he’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
Nine
He looks down at the wooden porch, wondering suddenly if he’s dripping blood onto it.
Ten
He holds his breath.
Eleven?
The porch light doesn’t even come on.
Deckard sighs then, and turns around, stepping off the porch. Honestly he didn’t know what he was expecting. He makes his way back to his bike, limping now. His ankle had twinged when he stepped off the porch, maybe he had sprained it? He debates his course of action when he gets back to his hotel room. He’d probably have to sneak in through the window--wouldn’t want the manager to see him and kick him out--and he knew he had a set of tweezers in his bag so he could pull the glass out. Then he could--
“Shaw? That you?”
Twenty-two
“Yeah, twinkle-toes, it’s me,” he says, turning around, suddenly feeling like a berk.
“ Jesus, what happened to you?!”
Ah, right, the stellar condition of his face.
“Long story,” he decides to say back.
“Well, don’t just stand there, asshole, get inside and tell me.”
A grin breaks out onto Deckard’s face, but it’s smothered quickly.
“Your kid home?”
“No, she’s at her mom’s. Stop asking questions and get in before I shut the door and go back to sleep.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” but he’s already ascending the porch steps again, pointedly ignoring Hobbs’ low whistle when he’s bathed in porch light that makes it impossible to hide his condition.
Well, that, and the fact that his ankle suddenly shoots a spark of pain up his leg with the explicit message of get off me that makes his leg buckle under him. Hobbs manages to get a hand on his right shoulder, preventing him from hitting the ground, but he abruptly lets go when he hears Deckard’s choked-off scream, and he hits the ground anyways. Thanks a fucking lot Hobbs. And now he’s definitely bleeding onto the porch, but every time he tries to get his hands underneath him to push himself up, they just don’t respond to him.
Hobbs hovers over him anxiously, not knowing where to touch but wanting to help. Finally he comes to a decision, and he grabs Deckard around his middle and hoists him up into a fireman’s carry like it’s fucking nothing-- ouch, his ego --and carries him inside, kicking the door shut behind him and locking it.
He parades Deckard into the loo, where he sets him down on the closed toilet before hunting for a first aid kit in the cupboard. Deckard, for his part, decides to take it upon himself to take off his tight shirt so that Hobbs can reach his injuries. He grasps the materials in his hands, then promptly lets go because ouch his fucking hands and when will he fucking learn .
Hobbs looks up from where he’d been arranging items on the counter, brow furrowed. Deckard’s too busy cursing up a storm to meet his eyes, but he stops mid-sentence when Hobbs suddenly steps in front of him, towering over him in the cramped space. He offers his hand, palm up, to she-hulk when the brute gestures for it, and he grits his teeth as Hobbs pokes and prods, inspecting it. He returns the hand back to Shaw then takes a good look at Deckard, seemingly considering something.
“You fond of that sweater princess?” Hobbs asks him, and the question catches him off guard at first. Then he realizes what Hobbs is proposing.
“It’s called a jumper …bloody Americans,” he snarks back, holding out his arms when Hobbs pulls out a Swiss Army knife from the back pocket of his joggers-- shit, paranoid much? --and flips the blade out. He even manages to hold still when Hobbs turns the blade towards him and draws closer to him. He snorts to himself. Talk about the worst bedside manner in all of history. Yes, let’s just point the blade at the man who’d just been impaled with one not even 24 hours ago? Genius!
Hobbs cuts lengthwise down both his sleeves, from his shoulder to his wrists, then carefully slips the material off his arms. He then steps close to him, to the point where his crotch is in Deckard’s face oi back off Romeo to cut from the back of his neck down to the hem of the jumper. Deckard stiffens involuntarily when Hobbs comes around front and puts the blade to his throat to cut from the neck of the jumper to the hem on the frontside.
“Don’t worry, princess, I’m not gonna kill you. Not like this at least,” Hobbs chuckles, having caught the slight change in his posture.
“Too prissy to handle the fallout?” Deckard bites back, just because he can.
“Trust me, asshat, if I’m gonna kill you it’s gonna be through me knocking your teeth so far back in your throat that you choke on ‘em.”
Deckard opens his mouth to reply, but Hobbs chooses that moment to go at his right hand with the tweezers that he’d apparently sterilized with rubbing alcohol, and he lets out a pained hiss instead. He shoots Big&Bald a glare that he doesn’t seem to see and settles down. He’s grudgingly surprised, though he’d never admit it to the man--he’s relatively gentle with the treatment. Hattie probably would have been harsher.
Hobbs is gentle but meticulous. He gets the bigger, more visible chunks out first, then forces Deckard to wash his hand with warm water to wash away the blood so that he can pick out the smaller fragments. He goes back over even the smallest scratches at least four times, checking for anything he missed. It’s time-consuming, but surprisingly effective and relatively painless. Upon finishing with his right hand, Hobbs puts down the tweezers and grabs the roll of bandages sitting on the counter, wrapping Deckard’s hand quickly and effectively, allowing for coverage but also movement. Deckard wiggles his fingers afterwards to test the durability, and is pleasantly surprised when he’s able to move his fingers freely without shifting the bandages.
Hobbs moves onto the other hand, then, taking the same amount of painstaking time and attention to detail (if not more) to clean and dress the other hand, too. Upon finishing with dressing his left hand (and rolling his eyes when Deckard tests out the wrappings), Hobbs then goes to put the tweezers down before stopping thoughtfully. He eyes the bullet wound on Deckard’s now bare shoulder.
“It’s still in there,” Deckard affirms, and Hobbs makes a humming sound that sounds vaguely sympathetic. And hell, Deckard might as well be of some use, seeing as how he was so rude to barge in unannounced. “Here, give em to me, I know where it is, I can feel it.”
Hobbs raises an eyebrow at him, probably going for intimidating, but just getting confused. Deckard very politely lets him know that. He gets the tweezers thrown at him for his efforts. But it was what he was going for so whatever. Deckard lets out a small sigh then braces himself and digs the newly sterilized tweezers into the gunshot wound, finding the bullet in one go and looking for a good grip on it. Hobbs, on the other hand, crouches down in front of him, then after a moment of hesitation, reaches out to feel out Deckard’s ribs.
“I expect dinner first, handsome,” Deckard leers at him through gritted teeth (still has tweezers very much inside his body).
“Knew you’d be the type to put out on the first date, sweetheart,” Hobbs leers right back, and Deckard stops the traitorous twitch of his lips before it becomes visible.
“So blood and bruises does it for you? I’ll keep that in mind,” he quips back, finally getting a good enough grip on the bullet to pull it out.
“Depends, actually. If I press on them, will you whine for me? That’ll definitely get me going,” Hobbs mocks. His hands are on Shaw’s back now, marking out tender spots and feeling up and down his spine.
“Hmmm I’ll think about it. Would you like it if I screamed for you?” his voice is sweet, juxtaposing his filthy words, and it does the trick, Hobbs’ hands stutter and he retracts them, avoiding Deckard’s eyes.
Victory, tosspot
“I dunno, darling, just you on your back with your legs wrapped around my waist might be enough for me.”
It surprises a laugh out of Deckard.
Dammit...tie
“Alright then, love, get these holes in me fixed up and I’ll see what I can do for you,” Deckard bats his eyelashes at him.
Hobbs laughs openly and rises to his feet, taking the tweezers with the bloody bullet in them from Deckard’s hand and depositing them on the counter. He then pulls out a needle and unflavored dental floss from the kit. The needle is already strung through with the floss, which gives Deckard an idea of how frequently Hobbs has come to use this particular pair of items.
His vision suddenly tilts.
Fuck, maybe he should’ve done something to stem the bleeding.
“Hobbs... Hobbs …” he tries to warn him, but his voice is too soft and the big bastard doesn’t turn around.
Whatever
Black spots start dancing in his vision and he feels the sensation of nausea that always accompanies lightheadedness.
It’s his floor anyways
And with that, he’s out.
…
He jackknifes out of unconsciousness, panicking.
Where is he? How long has he been out? Why can’t he remember anything? Fuck, where is he ?
“Shaw, Shaw...Deckard. Hey, calm down asshat, you’re safe.” Funnily enough, it’s the ‘asshat’ that calms him down more than anything.
There’s a hand on his left shoulder, urging him back into a lying position, which he realizes is probably the best position to be in. The bruises on his body are pitching fits that make it difficult to even sit up. He lets the hand ease him back into a lying position, cringing hard when his upper body hits the… bed(?) that he’s lying on and sends a twinge of pain through his shoulder. He stares up at the ceiling, letting his vision go back to normal, then turns his head slightly. He’s met with the sight of Hobbs sinking back down into an armchair that’s been set up next to the bed.
“Hobbs?” his voice is scratchier than it usually is, but he ignores it.
“Yeah, princess?”
“Where…?”
“My room.”
“Oh.”
“Eloquent.”
“Shut up.”
“How long?”
“You’ve been out for about 17 hours.”
Deckard almost ricochets up again, but is stopped by Hobbs’ hand on his good shoulder again. His good bare shoulder, he suddenly realizes.
“ Relax, Deckard . I already called Hattie, who said she called your mom. And then you got a call from Nobody on your cell, which I answered, too.”
“I need to--” but Hobbs cuts him off again.
“He already sent by Reisner to pick up the flash drive that was in your pocket, and I handed it off to him. We were face to face, and the flash drive left my hand and went straight into his. No funny business.”
Deckard relaxes back into the bed, which, speaking of--
“Whose bed…?”
The smirk that Hobbs sends him is definitely not reassuring him.
Deckard groans.
“You seemed pretty passionate about me taking you to bed earlier. What happened? Too much of a pussy to follow through?” Hobbs taunts.
And two can play at that game.
He makes a show of looking between himself, in the bed, and Hobbs, in the chair.
“ I’m in your bed, half-naked, might I add; yet you’re still fully dressed and not in bed with me. Sure you’re not the one who’s the pussy?”
Hobbs doesn’t miss a beat.
“Well after you passed out after I got my hands on your body I figured you weren’t ready for that yet.”
Deckard snorts at that.
“You give yourself too much credit. Not like the blood loss from the bullet in my shoulder had anything to do with me fainting, or anything,” he scoffs back.
Hobbs shakes his head thoughtfully.
“No… I’m pretty sure it was me, darling. I mean, given the way that you were biting back moans every time I got my hands on you.”
“Moans of pain you berk. From the bullet in my shoulder and the knife in my arm .”
“Damn, I know we established that bruises and blood do it for me, but I never realized that you were such a slut for pain.”
Deckard groans again.
“You know, I was willing to sleep with you, if only to sate your blindingly obvious desperate need for me, but I completely forgot: I don’t sleep with people whose egos are larger than their dicks.”
Hobbs laughs at him and leans a little closer, like he’s telling a secret.
“Trust me sweetheart, my ego’s the only thing that’s bigger than my dick.”
Deckard just smirks back at him, leaning in close just to goad him.
“Maybe so, but that just means that you still don’t meet my qualifications sweetheart. I stroke cocks, not egos.”
Hobbs laughs again, settling back into his chair and picking up the book that he must’ve dropped to the floor when he’d gotten up to assure Deckard the first time. And suddenly, Deckard’s confused.
“Hang on, I showed up at your porch in the middle of the night. On top of that, it would have been a good hour before I passed out. And you probably spent another hour or so patching me up. Have you slept since I woke you?”
The question seems to catch Hobbs off guard. Deckard rolls his eyes.
“I’m not a complete arse Hobbs, I do have manners. Did you sleep?”
One side of Hobbs’ lips twitch up in a half-smile.
“No,” he admits. “But it’s fine. You needed help and I was afraid you would choke on your own blood if I left you here on your own.”
Deckard shifts guiltily underneath the duvet, which he just realizes must have been pulled up over him.
“You wouldn’t have to leave me,” he wheedles, gesturing to the bed with his good arm. “I don’t bite… unless of course you want me to,” he tacks on with a roguish wink. But the initial offer itself isn’t sarcastic. Like he said, he does have manners. He wasn’t raised in a sty.
“I don’t think you’re ready for something as athletic as that just yet,” Hobbs replies with a smirk.
Deckard opens his mouth to argue--the dimwit hasn’t slept for close to 20 hours !--but Hobbs beats him to it.
“Relax, princess. If I really get tired enough, I can sleep in this chair or I can move the couch in here and take a quick nap. You need the rest and the space more than I do.”
Deckard rolls his eyes but allows it. Hobbs knows his limits. And yes, Deckard really could use the recovery time. As if given a signal, his eyes begin to get droopy. To be fair, he hadn’t slept for two nights straight, either. And the bed is warm .
Hobbs, taking the victory for what it is, settles back again and pulls the book up to eye level.
Pet Sematary
Huh, interesting. He never took Hobbs for the horror type.
Even as his eyes close and his subconscious begins to wander, Deckard opens his mouth,
“Don’t get too attached to Jud.”
Hobbs’ affronted exclamation follows him into his slumber.
…
The next time he wakes up, the chair next to the bed is vacated. Unsettled, but not panicked as he was the first time he woke up on the bed, Deckard sits up stretches, surprised when his newly stitched up wounds don’t do much more than twinge and the bruises seem more like a faraway ache than anything. He wonders where Hobbs is, and whether
“And where do you think you’re going, hotshot?” Hobbs’ irritating voice sounds from the door, and he looks up with his mouth open to retort back at the man, only to stop short. He raises a questioning eyebrow instead.
“Breakfast in bed, love?”
“You know I live to pamper you, sweetie,” is the sarcastic response that he gets back.
“Thanks darling,” he snipes back as Hobbs sets a plate in his lap.
Remembering his manners, he waits until he’s finished eating before he goes to speak.
“How long…?”
“Including the seventeen hours from before, you’ve got thirty-three hours total.”
Deckard takes in the bags under Hobbs’ eyes. They’re not terribly apparent, but they’re more noticeable than they were before.
“I remember you saying something about dragging the couch in? What happened to that?”
“And leave you unprotected?! Never!”
Deckard tosses the now empty plate at Hobbs in retaliation; the tosser already has his hands out in preparation to catch it.
As Chewbacca goes into the kitchen in order to put the plate into the sink, Deckard swings his legs over the side of the very comfortable bed and wiggles his toes. He’s still got his pants on-- thank god for small mercies, if Hobbs had seen that bite mark on his thigh --but his torso is bare, which he guessed at. There’s a full length mirror in Hobbs’ bedroom, so he gets to his feet carefully and ambles slowly towards it, wanting to inspect the condition of his body for himself. He looks like rubbish, but the stitches on his right shoulder and arm are exceptionally neat.
Hobbs appears behind him in the mirror with a smirk on his face. He even goes as far as to step up directly behind Deckard and place his sausage fingers on Deckard’s hipbones, which are just visible above the waistband of his low-riding pants.
“Don’t worry, sweetheart, you’re still beautiful to me,” the big wanker says, squeezing teasingly at his hips. Deckard rolls his eyes visibly in the mirror. Then, he turns around in Hobbs’ grip and rests his still-bandaged palms on the man’s pecs (read: tits ), batting his eyelashes up at him.
“I would say the same about you, but I think we both know that I’d be lying,” he snarks back, hooking his foot around Hobbs’ ankle and pushing him with the hands on his chest, forcing him to let go and windmill with his arms to keep his balance. He shoots Deckard a stink eye to which he responds with a two-finger salute.
“Can I use your shower, love?”
“Only if I can hop in there with you, sweetcheeks,” Hobbs calls over his shoulder.
“You know you’ve already got an invitation, handsome,” Deckard calls back in a sultry tone, putting a swing in his hips for Hobbs’ benefit.
“Go pretty yourself up, I’ll join you in a second, honey-bunches.”
“I’ll be waiting for you, babyface,” Deckard flirts as he shuts the door for the loo behind him.
He can’t pinpoint the exact moment when his and Hobbs’ hateful banter turned into flirting with one another, but it gives him just as much satisfaction as their previous arguments used to, so you won’t hear any complaints on his part. Besides, he has even more of an opportunity to make slights at Hobbs, which he takes as a victory.
Upon finishing with his shower, he takes the towel he finds and dries off with it. He then ties it around his waist and saunters out of the loo, which has gotten steamy from his hot shower to the point where its suffocating him. He decides to parade back into Hobbs’ bedroom to put on his pants again. Hobbs is sitting on the made-up bed with Pet Sematary back in his hands. He looks up when Deckard makes his way into the room, clad in the towel.
“You didn’t join me in the shower so I thought I’d bring the party here,” Deckard flirts. He sits down on the bed and does some fancy maneuvering to get his pants on underneath the towel. He manages with minimal wiggling, which Hobbs snorts at him for. Deckard throws his towel at the man in retaliation.
“Where are you?” Deckard asks, gesturing with his chin towards the book when Hobbs raises an eyebrow at him questioningly.
“Rachel got stuck at the gas station for the night, Jud fell asleep, and Louis buried Gage’s body in the ceremonial grounds.”
Deckard makes a face.
“Only goes downhill from there.”
“Wonderful.”
Hobbs tosses a shirt at him without looking up from the book.
“Cheers, mate.” Deckard pulls it on.
It’s big on him, but not by much: Hobbs wears everything five sizes too small anyhow. Deckard absentmindedly wonders if he scavenges through his daughter’s closet every morning for clothes. He asks Hobbs this and gets the towel thrown back at him.
“Your guns and knives and everything else are on the table by the front door.”
“I’ll pick ‘em up on my way out, thanks dear.”
“Anytime, princess, you know I’d do anything for you,” Hobbs deadpans without even looking up from his book.
Deckard goes to leave the room, but stops at the door and turns back to face Hobbs.
“Seriously, thanks Hobbs,” Deckard says, his voice quiet.
“Like I said, Shaw: anytime,” Hobbs replies, and for one split second, Deckard actually doesn’t hate the man.
“I’d never pass up the opportunity to have you in my bed, baby.”
Aaaaaand, there’s the hate again.
Just to spite him, Deckard calls back over his shoulder as he leaves the room,
“Don’t get too attached to Rachel, either.”
Hobbs’ infuriated squawk echoes in his ears as he gathers his effects and shuts the front door behind him.
…
A week or so later, Hobbs gets a postcard from Siberia.
Met some people the other day, one of them was tall, big, ugly, looked like he’d just bounced his head of a wall recently. Reminded me of you!
Missing you,
D.S.
Hobbs laughs so hard that Sam comes into his room to check on him.